Monthly Archives: August 2013

Something really great happened last week. A gamer in the outskirts of the town of Rugby was finally able to rekindle his enjoyment of gaming. With his consoles finally reclaiming the much more significant role they had previously been known to enjoy in his life, and inspired by the helpful placement of Monday, he thought to himself ‘what better time to finally sit down and create the ninth episode of Musical Monday?’

And so it became known. Almost ten months after the previous episode Musical Monday once again washes up on the shores of The Formula Magician. So put that sand castle construction project on hold for just a moment, and let’s have a listen of some of that video game music we all love.

Purple and gold sit proudly in second and third place on my list of favourite colours. They’re colours shared both by my Musical Monday logo and the main character for my first game this week. It was a game that was thoroughly enjoyed by both myself and my sister Kirsty back in those fabled days of the original PlayStation.

Spyro: Year of the Dragon had everything we could have hoped for from one of our favourite series at the time. It had an interesting storyline, all of the characters that helped Spyro on his journey were likable (well, maybe Agent 9 was an exception. I can never seem to find as much love for him as the others). It also had the skateboarding mini-game that me and Kirsty lost hours enjoying as it provided more entertainment than any actual skateboarding video games have ever managed to match.

We found our copy of Spyro 3 last week and wasted no time in returning to the early days of Spyro’s gaming career. The series has never really been able to provide the same touch of excitement since the arrival of the PlayStation 2, and the quite disappointing Enter the Dragonfly. Kirsty also discovered the secret to performing the Raging Ripto skateboard trick. We had only managed to pull this trick off once before, but now Kirsty can do these time and time again, and has since taught me how to do it. Needless to say, poor Hunter no longer stands a chance in those face offs he challenges you to.

Anyways, onto my chosen theme. The music from the level Frozen Glaciers brought the memories of this series flooding back when we arrived in the snow-covered world. This world remains well known for the great yeti boxing match for the grand prize of Bartholomew’s ball, which could easily be one of the game’s most frustrating sections. The frustration would melt away, even on the frozen fields, once you left ringside and allowed this music back into your living room. Such a calming theme that I could happily listen to for hours.

The second game I have chosen for this week’s post is also enjoying a spot on my ‘currently playing’ list. I finally finished the story of Jak II this past weekend. My original plan, as you can imagine, was to move straight onto Jak 3 to continue the story. Unfortunately I realised that I’m currently unable to do this thanks to my decision last year to buy and download each of the Jak and Daxter games individually from the PlayStation Store. This left me without Jak 3 and, with the family holiday and an A2 textbook purchasing spree coming up, limited funds to commit to buying any new games. My attention was there for the taking. Then came a voice.

“Hey, madhatters13! Why have you never played me? Remember when you spent an entire night downloading me in all of my 7GB of glory? Why do that for nothing? You know I’m an excellent game, and don’t even get me started on how many times I’ve heard you listening to my soundtrack. Forget all those other games! Just click my icon, and prepare for a fantastic journey. How about it?”

In my defence, my mind did jump straight to my usual disclaimer that games may be left abandoned for indefinite periods of time. I couldn’t deny it did have a point though, so I took it up on the offer. I clicked Shadow of the Colossus on my PS3’s XMB and have loved every moment of it since. I’m currently on my way to the fifth colossus, Avion, which has been promised to be a pain just to catch. So far things are going pretty well though and I’ve only been reduced to the height of a pancake once. This came curtsey of the third colossi’s sword.

The soundtrack I have chosen has always been one of my favourites ever since I first heard it while listening to the game’s soundtrack. The Opened Way does a fantastic job of building the excitement and tension while you are struggling your way up and attacking the colossi. Hanging on for dear life as each head shake and sudden movement sends Wanda flailing around and leaves you hoping that he doesn’t lose his grip completely. That’s also happened twice to me so far, and it didn’t make for a fun sight seeing Wanda falling from those heights.

[Video upload credits: Spyro: Year of the Dragon -Ronaldowen273 | Shadow of the Colossus – ZEROxxCross]

Camp NaNoWriMo came to a close once more on Wednesday, and I am very pleased to say that I was able to join the celebrations around the Winners’ Campfire this time around. After almost falling victim to crippling procrastination even before I had typed a single word in the first week, I can’t tell you how happy it made me to be able to type the title of this post just now. Looking back on my daily word count totals I can safely say that there was very little consistency in how much I was writing each day, but my entire efforts in winning this month were kept alive thanks to a few big-scoring days, the largest of which was 5,755 words.

My final word count for the month stands at 50,169, which I validated on the Camp NaNoWriMo website after my final late-night writing session at 1:34 AM on July 31st. Celebrations were heard in my cabin once more just two hours later as another of my cabin mates crossed the finish line. Funnily enough their total word count was just 9 words away from mine. Very strong performances were seen elsewhere, as two of my other cabin mates past the 70,000 word milestone and one made it past 60,000. Unfortunately, one of our cabin mates never joined in the fun, but of the seven of us taking part five made it to our 50,000 word goal, typing up a grand total of 322,482 words in the process.

Now we have welcomed August into our lives the mission of continuing my novel presents itself. I know I still have so much more to write, and, if asked, would give a rough estimate that I will finish the story in the region of 100,000-120,000 words. I would love to continue to work on it in the coming months (albeit, probably a little slower than I have been) so I can have it in a near-completed state by the time we get to November. When November arrives I will once again be joining three of my cabin mates on this great adventure we call NaNoWriMo. One less novel idea trapped in my mind should, in theory, make it easier to see what lies beyond the revolver-wielding cavemen and curious alien visitors that remain to pick out my next tale. I’ll let you know if that is true sometime in October.

Once my current novel reaches a stage I’m happy with I’d love to put it on here alongside its November predecessor. Hopefully they will learn to get along despite having almost nothing in common, right down to a complete lack of Medieval siege engines planned in my newest effort. (Seriously, I don’t even know where I could squeeze one in.)

If you took part in Camp NaNoWriMo I hope you had as much fun as I did. The experience of being placed in small chat groups turned out to be much more enjoyable than I initially thought it would be at the start of the month. It’s made me wish that the main NaNoWriMo had a similar structure, but at the same time it’s neat that these events have a unique feel to the main event in November.

Thanks as always for reading, and I hope you have a great weekend. My family bought a new car earlier this week (a Mitsubishi Delica) so I’m looking forward to have a test drive in that later on today when I visit my grandparents.